Still here ... or there

Hello, everyone.

 

I will not be posting pictures for quite a long time. It will be a few weeks till there is landline phone access/Internet at our house. The nice thing is, though, that we will have DSL and a free router. Some things seem to be cheaper here, but timelines for service are just as I remember ... a little more laid-back. For one thing, most Germans rely primarily on their cell phones. Secondly, Germans rarely move. So setting up home phone service takes a little longer than at home.

 

We are getting used to our house, but every door, and I mean every door has a key (when we took over the house, I counted 26 keys in all). And some of the doors are one-way. That is, one side has a handle. The other only has an unturnable knob. So, if the keys are not in the doors, there is always a possibility of us locking ourselves out of one of our floors. The nice thing, I suppose, is that our house was orignally designed as a multi-family house, so one could conceivably ring a doorbell to see if there is anyone occupying the now-locked floor to give one access. The bad part is that it's practically guaranteed that I will ring a doorbell in the middle of the night while fumbling for a lightswitch. I found out the hard way that one of our basement doors (three rooms in the basement, and each with its own key) is one-way. Translation of "hard way" is locking myself in the basement and calling to Meggie for 10 minutes. I was delighted that she heard me, becaus,e being two floors up, there were at least four doors between us. I moved the key to the side with the stationary handle.

 

Alan is in Alaska doing his Reserve duty. We miss him, but it's nice for all of us that he has a chance to travel back to Alaska to check on things there. And he'll be home in a couple of weeks.

 

The girls and I are doing fine. Trying to settle in. I'm kind of glad that the bulk of our stuff hasn't come yet. We've got enough to put away with just the advance shipment and the things we traveled with and accumulated while in the hotel.

 

By the way, we are getting to know our neighborhood. So far, within a short walk from the house, we have an Italian restaurant, a Croatian restaurant (I'm excited), two bakeries, one butcher, a hairdresser and a florist. That's all within two blocks and on one street. We live in an area that's kind of busy. But it amazes me that it's completely silent on Sunday mornings. Very little is open in Germany on a Sunday. Here, it's still a day of rest, not a day for rushing around or doing errands. What I hear most on Sundays are church bells from the various churches around town.

 

There is a lot more to learn about our neighborhood and many people to meet. One German neigbor already stopped by to let me know I had left the back porch light on. I didn't tell him I had meant to do that. But he meant well: "I am your German neighbor. And I saw you left your light on, and I wanted to warn you, because, my goodness, that will be expensive." True.

 

I need to ask another neighbor about trash day(s). We have four trash bins (recyclable packaging, paper, compost and other) and I don't know the collection dates for any of them. Glass must be sorted by color and placed in collection containers down the street. I don't mind sorting. And I wish the Municipality of Anchorage would make it this easy, instead of expecting us to hault it all over town.

 

here's hoping all is well where you are,